Markets

Fledgling renewables developer Larrakia Energy has reached an agreement with Australian resources company Tivan Limited to supply up to 10% of the output from a planned 300 MW solar farm being developed in the Northern Territory.

LAVO, which entered the market with its hydrogen battery in 2021, has soft launched a new Energy-as-a-Service model. Partnering with Yingli Solar, LAVO says it can install and maintain solar, battery and EV charging systems at no upfront cost to Australian households, who will then pay off the systems via a 10-year subscription.

Renewable energy investor and developer Quinbrook has launched software to allow customers to trace both the source and carbon-intensity of their electricity in real-time. The energy-tracing platform comes at an important moment, just as Australia’s government is deciding whether to include time-stamped and granular source information in its formal certificate schemes.

The Brookfield-led consortium looking to acquire Origin Energy has come back with a “best and final” bid that values the company at approximately $20 billion (USD 12.85 billion). The offer comes just days after the energy utility’s largest shareholder rejected the previous bid.

Chinese solar panel manufacturer AIKO unveiled its solar cell technology at Melbourne’s All-Energy event last week ahead of an impending entry into the Australian market.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, OPIS, a Dow Jones company, offers bite-sized analysis on solar PV module supply and price trends.

One of Australia’s “big four” banks, the Commonwealth Bank, will begin offering interest-free finance up to $30,000 to install rooftop solar and home batteries with select merchants. The program will also allow customers to split repayments into instalments over one to five years.

Ground-mounted PV is increasingly being investigated not only as a renewable generator, but as shelter for crops and creatures under fire from climate change. Last week’s All Energy conference handed the mike to some pioneers in the field.

Australian natural hydrogen explorer Gold Hydrogen says it has confirmed an “active natural hydrogen field” in South Australia with purities nearly matching those accidentally discovered 100 years ago. The results come from Australia’s first dedicated natural hydrogen exploration well.

Transformer shortages are taking their toll on battery energy storage system (BESS) integrators, as competition in the market intensifies.